ACT 2. Sand Hill Road, Suite 314
I trademarked Sequoia Capital's name, then walked in with a manuscript instead of a pitch.
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Late January — by Wyoming
Thirty-three years after my first visit—and more than 2,000 years since Caesar crossed the Rubicon to defy the Roman Senate—I stood at the banks of a different Rubicon.
This one wasn’t made of water.
It was made of wealth. Of a thousand well-intentioned lies wrapped in success. And I was crossing it not on their terms, but on mine.
I had returned to the building I once hoped would become the command center of a quiet revolution—to save the soul of business, with music.
Sequoia Capitol™, we call it in The Whimsical World of Songa. Although I’ve heard it spelled differently in your world.
The belly of the millionaire beast beckoned me a second time. But the siren song of success held no power now. I’d already tasted it.
“I’ve grown,” I whispered to myself, stepping through the revolving door. I reached for my Old Self Phone, pulled from my left pocket, and texted the Managing Partner.
I’m here. I bet you $10 million in no-strings-attached seed funding they won’t recognize me at the front desk.
—Wyoming
Then I slipped it back into my blazer and pulled out my New Self Phone, from the right.
Same message. Different recipient. This time, The Founder.
That’s $10 million, I thought, smiling as I pressed Floor 3.
Present.
I didn’t come to Davos to network. I came to burn the whole thing down.
It had been years since I walked out of this fortress of wealth and whispered power.
And yet here I was again—basement level, past the brushed metal walls, the security scanners.
The ones who inherited the world were still here, circling capital like vultures around culture’s carcass—reminding me that even after becoming a millionaire, I still wasn’t welcome back into the world I’d left.
But exposing the secrets of these smoke-filled rooms to the wider public—in a manuscript tht had begun to circulate, codenamed The Ridiculous, Staggering, Whimsical World of Songa.—had made me persona non grata. Excommunicado.
No matter.
Being extraordinary—out-of-the-ordinary, extraterrestrial—is a lonely experience.
Because the hardest part of being out of this world… is knowing you’re not from it.
Once these were my people, now I had no people.
Creativity kept me company on my loneliest days.
I’d lost investments. I’d made fortunes. Burned through both, then raised them from the ashes more times than I care to admit.
But during my darkest days, I never lost the one thing that mattered.
Because the only thing worse than losing money… is losing love.
But as I entered Davos, love was the last thing I was feeling from the financial zealots now staring at me as heretic.
A general partner from BlackRock stared at me like I’d risen from the dead. Maybe I had. I was unshaven, untucked, uninvited.
“Is that... Schmetterling?”
I kept walking. I wasn’t heading to the main forum stage. Sequoia had taken over a private suite beneath the Belvédère Hotel—tucked past a fake “Maintenance” sign anddown a corridor that smelled like old power and new lies.
A junior associate from Sequoia stepped in my path.
“Do you have a meeting?”
“No,” I said. “You called me.”
He blinked. Before he could speak, a voice from down the hall broke the tension.
“Wyoming Schmetterling! as I live and breathe.”
The Founder of Sequoia. The man who once called me a visionary. Or batshit crazy. I forget which.
“What in God’s name have you done now?”
“I trademarked Sequoia Capitol™,” I replied. “Waited for your lawyers to send a cease and desist. And that’s exactly what they did.”
“I know that, Wy—but why?” the Founding Partner said.
He exhaled, looked me over, saw the state I was in. “Everyone said you were off in the wilderness somewhere outside Cheyenne. We thought you’d…”
“Lost my mind?” I offered.
He shrugged. Didn’t deny it.
“I have a pitch,” I say. “You’ll want to hear this one. Biggest ROI you’ve ever seen.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Well—a different kind of ROI.”
I paused.
“It’s not for you... It’s for the world.”
He opened the door to their private suite and motioned for me to take a seat at the head of the conference room table.
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2 years earlier. The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, California.
“What other books are you working on?” I asked Dr. Jack Spelling, our first meeting.
He hesitated. “Can’t say much. It’s about a multibillion-dollar startup that reinvented the lodging industry.”
“Oh, they did it backwards,” I said. “I want to write the story of the billion-dollar unicorn before we build it. The world doesn’t have 20 years to rebuild community the old-fashioned way.”
He stared at me, trying to decode the space between metaphor and madness.
“Attract the cast of characters through the fictional story,” he finally said. “Then make it true.”
“Exactly. Uber, Amazon, Spotify… in the beginning, all were just words on a page.”
Or, in this case, on an LCD screen in a Sand Hill boardroom.
“The trick is to get them to believe it,” Jack said.
“That’s where you come in.”
Back in Davos. 15 minutes later.
We sat in a silent, windowless boardroom. A pot of stale coffee faintly steamed between us.
I placed a worn manuscript on the table. Its edges were gilded, its pages stained by time and intention. A single card—heavy, gold, impossible—slipped out.
The Founder stared at it like it might explode.
“It’s not just a book,” I said. “It’s a movement—one that might even become a miracle, if we let it.”He didn’t smile.
“It’s called The Ridiculous, Staggering, Whimsical World of Songa. It’s a living script for a novel way of life.”
I let the words linger.
“It’s everything we forgot capitalism could be.”
Apparently, word of its circulation, and the economic heresy within its page, had reached him. He was none too please, but still turned the book over slowly. The cover shimmered—part gospel, part prank.
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“Read it. Share it. Tear it apart if you must. But don’t ignore it.”
I paused.
“Just don’t confirm to them I’m behind it. Or they wouldn’t receive it. I don’t need this win. Our kids do. The world does.”
He tapped the golden ticket.
“What’s this?”
“Access,” I said. “To something new. A different kind of seed round. One thousand copies. Ten thousand dollars each. Every book is a share. Every ticket is a key.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a multi, multi-millionaire, Wyoming. What the hell do you need seed money for?”
“I don’t need money,” I replied. “I need belief.”
I leaned forward.
“I need you to believe the story. I need you to believe me. One last time.”
The word hung between us like a dare.
I’d spent years trying to prove myself to the world. Now, I came to serve it.
“We’ve spent decades building platforms that divide. Systems that reward anger, distraction, and disconnection. This…” I nodded at the book, “…is the start of a platform that heals.”
He said nothing.
“We’re not crowdfunding,” I said. “We’re crowddreaming. To make this work, we must leave blanks in our story—so others can find theirs in it.”
I slid the manuscript toward him.
“This isn’t about investment. It’s about involvement.”
He looked tired. Curious. Still skeptical.
“Someone’s going to buy in,” I said. “Not because they want a return—but because they want redemption.”
I stood up.
“One patron. One billionaire willing to become the bank—offering liquidity to a peer-powered, creative community of culture capitalists, artists, and families. Someone ready to stop running away from this planet—and start daring to invest in a world worth racing toward.”
He glanced at the clock. “They’re calling the room to order.”
“Good,” I said. “That means we’re right on time.”
He slipped the ticket into his jacket.
“And who’s presenting this madness?”
I paused at the door.
“Forbes,” I said. “My brother.”
Then I left toward the great hall of The World Economic Forum. It was time.
Ready for more? ACT 3 is free — scroll down 👇
🎭 Meet the cast shaping the story.
Some appear in other Substacks too—like Lewis Blues from The Happy Studio, a partner in the world of Songa at 🎙️ thehappystudio.org
Follow his blog and more:
🧢 ex-billionaire.org
🌍 theworldofsonga.com
Then continue the journey below:
ACT 3. Before the Bonfire Was Lit: The Millionaire, The Brand Guy, and the Heiress
The following is a meta-analysis of Welcome to the Mllionaire’s Campfire by the writers to unpack its creative process and offer a few clues to its deeper secrets.
